How Safe Are Your Children From a Future Hard Life?

how-safe-are-your-children-from-a-future-hard-life

Well, we just moved into our first home last week, have coped with the mammoth task of unpacking all our earthly belongings, while each member of our family, without exception, battled colds and coughs. And now alas, although I thought I may get away with it, I have the flu myself. At least I get to endure it in my beautiful, new surroundings. There truly is always something to be thankful for!

As the chaos and effort of these past weeks finally begin to settle, I have had a thought… The thought was birthed out of seeing my children work hard (heaps harder than they usually do 🙂 ). As I enjoyed watching them carry, unload, and sort belongings, the Lord laid something on my heart that I had never thought of before.

How Safe Are Your Children From A Future Hard Life?

My husband and I are forever doing our best to instill godly character into our precious descendants. One of the verses that we always find motivating is:

Train up a child in the way he should go;

even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6

The verse is pretty straight forward; train up your child to be responsible, when is old he will not depart from it.

Train up your child to be generous, when he is old he will not depart from it.

Lately, however, I have come to wonder whether this verse could also have the following much greater and scarier connotation. That being that if we train up our children in a negative way, the rest of the consequence remains the same, they will not depart from it:

 Train up your child to be selfish, when he is old he will not depart from it.

 Train up your child to be lazy, when he is old he will not depart from it.

 Train up your child to be disrespectful, when he is old he will not depart from it.

You may be asking, “Which parent in their right mind would purposely train up her child to be selfish, lazy, and disrespectful?”

The answer is simple. By not training your child in the positive qualities that the Lord requires, you incidentally train him in the negative. I believe it was J.C. Ryle who said something like, “Man’s natural inclination is not towards holiness.”

Oh, how encouraging are the words of Matthew Henry, the great commentator:

“Train children, not in the way they would go, that of their corrupt hearts, but in the way they should go; in which, if you love them, you would have them go.”

The Wrong Way To Raise Your Children

You see, my beautiful comrade in the trenches, if you do not raise your children intentionally, purposefully, and attentively, they will be raised in a way that will not produce God glorifying, pleasant-to-live-with adults.

If you leave your child to his own devices, he will learn… he will learn to be a sin-led, self-preserving, unwise, rebellious, and disobedient adult. He will find it difficult to get along in this world. It will be impossible for him to hold down a job. He will not respect those in authority in his life. You get the picture. The scenario is not good.

As a loving parent, I know that you want the very best for your children, as I do for mine. But this won’t happen coincidentally. It has to occur intentionally.

Practical Parenting Advice

I challenge you to make a list of the godly qualities that you want to see last for the duration of your children’s lives, and go about “training up your child in the way he should go.” What a wonderful promise awaits those who do. A future and a hope-filled certainty that when they are old they will not depart from it.

May you go forth today with renewed vision for each of your children, and work diligently to train them up for the great glory of a holy and worthy God.

What is one action you can take today to begin being more purposeful on this journey of training up your children intentionally?

I highly recommend this excellent DVD Series where Paul David Tripp lays out invaluable and eye opening truths and incredibly helpful practical tools for parents with children of all ages. Let’s get this parenting thing right, people!
getting-to-the-heart-of-parenting-paul-david-tripp-womenabidinggetting-to-the-heart-of-parenting-paul-david-tripp-womenabiding

 

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